Creature-Creator Synthesis

In the Supreme Being, Creator and creature are united in one Deity whose will is expressive of one divine personality. And this will of the Supreme is something more than the will of either creature or Creator, even as the sovereign will of the Master Son of Nebadon is now something more than a combination of the will of divinity and humanity. The union of Paradise perfection and time-space experience yields a new meaning value on deity levels of reality. [117:1.5 (1279.3)]

At first view, it would appear that the natures of God and man are as dissimilar and disconnected as is possible. We are finite personal beings with limited capacities for action and intellect. God is an infinite being of omnipotence and omniscience. We are created at the lowest possible level of personality existence. God is resplendent in eternal magnificence. The greatest mystery of mysteries, however, can be found in the unified personality of Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God, God and man forever existing in unified personality. Inspired by the perfect prototype of Jesus, all men are given the opportunity to align themselves in perfecting union with a heavenly and loving Father. Through the indwelling presence of the Paradise Father in the minds of men, God and man are brought together in communal self-consciousness. The associative fellowshipping of God and man in shared personal experience brings about a true creature-Creator partnership.

The creature-Creator partnership allows God and man to work in close association whereby divinity becomes unified with humanity. This partnership provides a technique for humanity to become divine. It provides the process by which the spirit of the emerging personality of the Supreme Being strives for spirit mastery over energy-matter within the totality of the finite cosmos. Our contributory endeavors in this matter provide us with a deeper insight into our own lives, that each person is in intimate partnership with God within our great cosmic arena of creature choice for attaining our perfection destiny.

The highest self-actualization of the individual isthe relatingof oneself to God, not as the absolutr Thou. [Soren Kierkegard b. 1813]

The synthesis of creature and Creator eventuates within the unifying Deity of the Supreme Being. Creatorship and creaturehood become fully united and the truth of this is portrayed in the evolving and divine nature of the Supreme. This eventuation yields a union of Paradise perfection and time-space experience whose will is expressive of one divine personality. This is a will of Supremacy that is supersummative of the combined will of divinity and humanity. Unpredictably, new Deity values and meanings are yielded by this creature-Creator synthesis on the finite level of reality.

The grand universe level of time and space is the sphere of the time-space descension of the personal Deities in reciprocal association with the time-space ascension of evolutionary will creatures. The Supreme Creators descend from Paradise into the Deity realm of the Supreme in time and space to reveal the love and sovereignty of the perfect Universal Father. In response, the perfecting creature takes on the ascension adventure in the supernal search for the Paradise Father. The bestowal incarnations of the Eternal Son and the Paradise Sons unify the divine nature of a Creator with the evolving nature of a creature. Bestowal ministry unifies divinity descensions of the Sons of Paradise with the ascensions of the surviving pilgrims of time and space. In a similar fashion, the bestowal ministry of the mortal-indwelling fragments of the Universal Father unifies the evolving creatures with God on Paradise.

When divinity becomes like humanity, inherent in this relationship is the possibility that humanity can become divine. [116:3.3 (1271.1)]

This dynamic of the descending perfect-Creator cause combined with the ascending perfecting-creature response generates the Deity evolution of the Supreme. This is creature-Creator-unifying Deity in the making, the achievement of creature-Creator identity within the Supremacy of Deity. The actualizing Supreme Being is the participating universal co-ordinator, correlator, and synthesizer in this association of creature and Creator, in this action of God and man in unity of purpose and experience.

The partnership of man and God, as they conjointly pursue the eternal quest for perfection and completeness in time-space experience, together resolve the manifold problems that beset all finite creation. It will be by virtue of the Supreme Being that man will consummate his perfecting future; the personality of man will creatively unify his being as driven by spirit, through mind, and over matter.

The evolving soul of mortal man is given birth by the combined influence of the indwelling Adjuster action of the Universal Father along with the cosmic reaction of the evolving Supreme Being, the Universal Mother. The mother influence of the Supreme is in strong effect throughout the mortal ascent through his local universe career. Upon fusion of the soul with the divine Adjuster, and progressing throughout the superuniverse ascendancy, both the existential Deity of the Paradise Father and the experiential Deity of the actualizing Supreme Being influence the perfecting pilgrim of time and space. Upon entry to Havona and attendant upon the progression to the Isle of Paradise, "the Father nature becomes increasingly manifest, attaining its height of finite manifestation upon the recognition of the Universal Father and the admission into the Corps of the Finality." [117:6.5 (1288.4)]

Ascendant finaliters are enabled to find the Universal Father by virtue of the ministry of their indwelling Adjusters, but it is only by the technique of continued experience that they truly come to know the Supreme Being. Upon the eventual fusion and resultant oneness with this indwelling Adjuster, such a onetime mortal being is assured of his eternal birthright for the endless pursuit of finality of universe service for and with the Supreme—thus results the sublime synthesis of man and the essence of God.

Man's Search for the Supreme

Though man’s spiritual nature reaches up in the worship experience to the Father who is infinite, man’s intellectual comprehension capacity is exhausted by the maximum conception of the Supreme Being. Beyond the Supreme, concepts are increasingly names; less and less are they true designations of reality; more and more do they become the creature’s projection of finite understanding toward the superfinite. [115:3.4 (1262.1)]

Mortal creatures can only comprehend the reality of Deity as it is expressed in the power-personality synthesis of the evolving Supreme Being. Comprehension of the nature of unified Deity cannot exceed the conceptual level of finite personal beings. We discover God as revealed in his manifestations of truth, beauty and goodness, and we then begin to recognize the love of God. As we progress in our ascendancy for finding this loving God, in the end we attain a real comprehension of the love of the Supreme. We find Deity as it has become power-personalized in the spirit person of God the Supreme. We discover the Supreme Being.

God the Father is infinite and will always be a mystery to us, even after we will have sometime found him on Paradise. However, God the Supreme is finite and is therefore comprehensible to finite creatures. We can never fully comprehend the fullness of the Universal Father, but we will all someday understand the Supreme Being because, like us, he has an origin, he has growth, and he has a destiny—he can achieve completion of perfection. The Supreme Being is God as finite creatures can understand him. Our inability ever to really know the Father in all of his attributes is compensated by our sometime ability to know the Supreme Being (it takes infinite understanding to know an infinite God). We will understand the Supreme, and we will be expository of the Supreme.

God the Supreme will not be attainable to any individual creature until that day when the grand universe reaches completed perfection and all creatures will consequently find him at the same time. God the Father is discoverable, though not fully comprehensible, by any individual who has attained the requisite level of divine perfection; in like manner are God the Son and God the Spirit discoverable. Beyond the Supreme, man's conceptual grasp becomes his projection of finite understanding toward the transcendent superfinite (the absonite). Moreover, this comprehensive extension of reach thus initiates man's search for the Ultimate level of Deity expression.

The Paradise personalities are existential and thereby absolutely real and contactable from all eternity. The Supreme Being, on the other hand, requires final universal attainment of perfection before all ascenders can simultaneously find him in his final expression of personalization. Ascenders require the maximum of universe maturity that will qualify them to collectively participate in his eventual discovery. All finite creatures will someday find the fully emerged Supreme simultaneously; no one will find the Supreme until all find the Supreme. Evolutionary mortals will sometime attain kinship with the experiential Supreme because they will truly share in his evolutionary perfection. The Supreme, being experiential, is completely experiencible. While the Father has a relationship with each of us as individuals, the actualized Supreme will not interact personally with any of us until he is contactable by all of us.

Creature-Supreme Identification

The individual creature participants in the actualization of the finite God of Supremacy are progressively augmented by this very participatory Deity adventure. The union of man with God causes no sacrifice of individuality or volitional selfhood of the creature. Rather, the mortal creature "exalts, enriches, spiritualizes, and unifies his evolving self to the very threshold of supremacy." [117:5.2 (1285.6)] Additionally, the emerging Supreme will in turn compensate finite creatures for their finite limitations. Ascending mortals are destined to someday find the Paradise Father, but their evolutionary minds are insufficient to fully comprehend an infinite and absolute Father. The attainment of God the Supreme, on the other hand, will correspond with a true understanding of his being as well.

The Supreme Being provides three basic functions for the benefit of mortal man:

He is the unifier of time-space divinity in God the Sevenfold.

He is the maximum of Deity comprehensible by finite creatures.

He is the only avenue of approach for mortal man to transcend finite reality in his exploration of superfinite reality and the search for the Ultimate.

The evolution of man in many ways parallels the growth of the Supreme Being. Man must rise above the material domination of body and environment towards the greater reality of the spirit. Each human must mentally exercise his free-will decisions towards this goal. For this end, he is endowed with adjutant mind, and the ever-present Thought Adjuster supplies the spirit impetus that eventually brings the morontial soul into being.

In like manner, the Supreme exercises his own power-personality prerogatives. His spirit nature as God the Supreme is dependent on the pre-existent unity of the Paradise Trinity and his sovereign power as the Almighty Supreme grows in and out of the acts and achievements of the Supreme Creator Personalities within the confines of the material superuniverses. In addition, the Supreme Being is a volitional and creative participant in his own Deity actualization by the coordinating activities of his Supreme Mind through the ministry of the infinite and universal cosmic mind of the Infinite Spirit.

There are remarkable similarities between the mortal creature's mind struggle for spirit self-realization and the Supreme Being's striving for personality actualization. As human beings, we work at co-ordinating our ascendant mortal-nature with the divine Adjuster-nature within the limits of finite possibilities. We accomplish this by exercising the personality decisions of the human mind. The Supreme Being is striving for the mastery of energy-matter within the totality of the finite creations of time and space as driven by the spirit-personality of God the Supreme and through the activity of Supreme Mind. We are both driven by an inherent perfecting nature. We seek creative unification of being as driven by spirit, through mind, and over matter.

The grand universe is not only a material creation of physical grandeur, spirit sublimity, and intellectual magnitude, it is also a magnificent and responsive living organism. There is actual life pulsating throughout the mechanism of the vast creation of the vibrant cosmos. The physical reality of the universes is symbolic of the perceivable reality of the Almighty Supreme; and this material and living organism is penetrated by intelligence circuits, even as the human body is traversed by a network of neural sensation paths. This physical universe is permeated by energy lanes which effectively activate material creation, even as the human body is nourished and energized by the circulatory distribution of the assimilable energy products of nourishment. The vast universe is not without those co-ordinating centers of magnificent overcontrol which might be compared to the delicate chemical-control system of the human mechanism. [116:7.1 (1276.2)]

The attainment of the psychic circles of mortal progression are indicative of an ascendant mortal's progressive grasp of cosmic meanings and the realization of divine values, and these result in a growing morontia consciousness of that ascendant mortal's growing relationship with the emerging Supreme Being. The gradual attainment of the seven cosmic circles is a true measure of that individual's universe citizenship.

Action, completion of decisions, is essential to the evolutionary attainment of consciousness of progressive kinship with the cosmic actuality of the Supreme Being. [110:6.17 (1211.2)]

Ascending finaliters are destined to the service and the revelation of the Supreme Being in and to the future universes of the four outer space levels of the Master Universe. Each perfected mortal finaliter, evolved in time and space and fused with a fragment of Deity, will express Supreme Deity just as Michael, during his mortal incarnation, expressed the Universal Father.

In time you mortals may begin the revelation of the Supreme to your fellows, and increasingly may you augment this revelation as you ascend Paradiseward. In eternity you may be permitted to make increasing revelations of this God of evolutionary creatures on supreme levels — even ultimate — as seventh-stage finaliters. [56:8.4 (644.2)]

All of the qualities and quantities of the evolving cosmos find their deity reflection in the Supreme Being, for the deity nature of the Supreme "is the mosaic composite of the total vastness of all creature-Creator nature throughout the evolving universes." [117:5.1 (1285.4)] We will someday realize our finite-perfection as reflected in the actualized Supreme Being. Mortal ascenders, when mustered into the Corps of the Finality, become personalities of God the Supreme. When we attain the seventh stage of spirit existence, our dual minds (the joint creation of the material mind and the Adjuster) will become triune and these "two attuned minds, the human and the divine, will become glorified in union with the experiential mind of the then actualized Supreme Being." [117:5.3 (1286.1)] Our triune mind will expand us in both destiny-potential and growth-capacity in our search for the ultimacy of God.

The dualizing fusion experience with the Adjuster does not beget the unearned attainment of all the primal infinity and eternity-status that characterizes our Adjuster. Rather, this fusion gives us the unlimited potential to breach our finite limitations and boundaries, providing us a secure bridge leading us to the presence of the Paradise Father and to the attainment of finite-perfection as personalities of the Father. I suspect that "triunitization" with the Supreme is very similar to the Thought Adjuster fusion-experience of "expanding our horizons". Certainly, it will be sufficient for discovering the ultimacy of God. With the actualization of the Supreme Being, the finaliter recognizes God the Supreme as an actual divinity presence and this attainment represents contact with the totality of finite experience. This initial attainment as newly recognized seventh-stage finaliters of final spirit status establishes "the completed attainment of the mind struggle for spirit-realization, the completion of the co-ordination of the ascendant man-nature with the divine Adjuster-nature within the limits of finite possibilities" and sets the stage for their experiencing "advancing ages of enriching experience, ripening wisdom, and divinity realization." [117:6.7 (1288.6)]

We know that God the Supreme "will never be personally discovered by any one creature until that far-distant time when, through the universal attainment of perfection, all creatures will simultaneously find him." [117:6:16 (1290:2)] We also know that "no single ascender will ever find the Supreme until all ascenders have reached their maximum universe maturity which qualifies them simultaneously to participate in this discovery." [117:6.23 (1290.9)] So, does this hint at a possible connection in the collective experience of this group-totality experience that is "transcendently" shared almost as if this might be a shared experience similar to the cosmic phenomenon of reflectivity? Certainly, we will all share this one-time experience together as comrades of the Supreme, and this in and of itself is a powerful bonding experience. The Urantia Book does say that our individualized search for the Supreme can only be found "in the hearts of all other men; and when all creatures perfectly reveal the love of the Supreme, then will he become a universe reality to all creatures." [117:6.23 (1290.9)] We may be bonded-by-experience with all other post-Supreme finaliters, but I am unsure whether we might also then stay in connection either through direct-reflectivity or through some sort of post-Supreme reflectivity as this collective pre-ultimate experience is totaled and reflected in the person of the Supreme Being. I suspect that ultimately we will all remain rugged pioneers and individual children of the Paradise Father and the Mother Supreme.

Man's Perfection with the Supreme

Man’s urge for Paradise perfection, his striving for God-attainment, creates a genuine divinity tension in the living cosmos which can only be resolved by the evolution of an immortal soul; this is what happens in the experience of a single mortal creature. But when all creatures and all Creators in the grand universe likewise strive for God-attainment and divine perfection, there is built up a profound cosmic tension which can only find resolution in the sublime synthesis of almighty power with the spirit person of the evolving God of all creatures, the Supreme Being. [116:7.6 (1276.7)]

The grand universe is truly a living organism wherein both man and Supreme seek to be co-creators of their own perfection, wherein both contribute to the living and evolving Deity of power and perfection in the overcontrol of the seven superuniverses. Although the Supreme Being did not create man, mankind evolved to its present state in complete dependence on the potentialities contained within the Supreme. Our whole life experience occurs within the very essence of the Supreme. Our lives are filled with great challenges because of the incomplete actualization of the Supreme Being. God the Supreme has yet to become sovereign within his deity domain. We share his struggles, but as we overcome and triumph, God the Supreme in like measure overcomes and triumphs.

We evolve in him and he evolves in us. Sometime in the eternal future the evolution of Supreme Deity will become a completed fact of universe history, and the opportunity to participate in this wonderful experience will have passed from the stage of cosmic action. [31:10.12 (353.8)]

The Supreme is beset with overwhelming challenges for attaining self-realization. God the Supreme is finite Deity and must therefore work within the imperfections of finite reality. There is the ceaseless struggle for "perfection of status and divinity of being." [117:4.1 (1283.4)] The evolutionary souls of morontia consciousness strive for the attainment of ever-progressing levels of meaning comprehension and value realization, and the summation of this collective effort contributes to the emergence of the Supreme Being.

Our struggles with the vicissitudes of time in the evolutions of space are reflections of his efforts to achieve reality of self and completion of sovereignty within the sphere of action which his evolving nature is expanding to the outermost limits of possibility. [117:4.1 (1283.3)]

The Supreme Being's very struggle for personal expression in the grand universe, the very evolution of his sovereign divinity, is directly dependent upon the freewill decisions of every personality in finite existence—the whole of his being is predicated on the totality of their combined actions. The Supreme Being carries on the struggle to achieve actualization of all that is yet to be expressed, but it is only through the realization of choice-experience that potentials transmute to actuals in the finite realms of the Supreme. The growth of the Supreme is dependent upon the decision-actions of the finite mind. The Supreme depends upon the integrity of human volition, on man's exercised wisdom of decision-actions, for his very actuality of experiential evolution.

The progressing personality leaves a trail of actualized reality as it passes through the ascending levels of the universes. Be they mind, spirit, or energy, the growing creations of time and space are modified by the progression of personality through their domains. When man acts, the Supreme reacts, and this transaction constitutes the fact of progression. [117:5.6 (1286.4)]

The finite creature can err in his freewill choosing because he is time-bound and space-limited, and this is a conditional repercussion of the evolving presence of the Supreme Being. This is a necessary condition that provides immature creatures to freely participate and contribute to universe progression, to discover their supreme obligations and duties of cosmic citizenship.

The act of the creature's choosing to do the will of the Father is of cosmic value and universe meaning. The choice by man to seek the Paradise Father, to seek the adventure of the ascending career, promotes the inevitable destiny of the Supreme in the inexorable flow of time within the stream of eternity. Mortal man has been given "control over the destiny of an infinitesimal fraction of the future of the Supreme. For as man attains human destiny, so does the Supreme achieve destiny on deity levels." [117:4.12 (1285.1)] When mortal man has chosen the path of eternal salvation with the eventual fusion and unification with the indwelling Adjuster, God and man become one in personality perfection. These divinity unions constitutes such an ascending son "a living part of the Supreme and insure for such a onetime mortal being the eternal birthright of the endless pursuit of finality of universe service for and with the Supreme." [101:6.6 (1112.2)]

When a human being chooses eternal survival, he is cocreating destiny; and in the life of this ascending mortal the finite God finds an increased measure of personality self-realization and an enlargement of experiential sovereignty. [117:4.2 (1283.4)]

When we freely choose the Father's will in accordance with the purposes and plans that he has laid out in the Deity realm of the Supreme, we exalt our freewill personality to the highest level of choice and we contribute immeasurably to the growth of the Supreme. It is "by such union with divinity man exalts, enriches, spiritualizes, and unifies his evolving self to the very threshold of supremacy." [117:5.2 (1285.6)] By giving our all to the Father, we also dedicate everything to the actualization of the Supreme. In return, we receive the unimaginable blessing of the Father's eternal presence and we help bring to fruition the destiny of the Supreme.

But no God-knowing mortal can ever be lonely in his journey through the cosmos, for he knows that the Father walks beside him each step of the way, while the very way that he is traversing is the presence of the Supreme. [117:6.27 (1291.4)]

From Paradise, our Thought Adjusters bring with them to those mortal candidates for indwelling predetermined plans for their intellectual and spiritual development. The plans for these model careers have been lovingly and considerately determined and foreordained by themselves and the Personalized Adjusters of Divinington, and these offered programs for attaining the ideal life have been duly certified by the attached Personalized Adjuster to Urantia. However, mortal beings are not enforced to adopt these plans. If a mortal creature chooses to reject his eternal career, the Supreme is inevitably delayed, accorded by the loss of this creature's experiential contribution to the evolution of this finite God of Supremacy. This experiential depravation must eventually be compensated by substitutional or collateral experience; the Supreme must await the action of another creature at some future time who will present an equivalent contribution to the Supreme.

But if a creature rejects the eternal career, that part of the Supreme which was dependent on this creature’s choice experiences inescapable delay, a deprivation which must be compensated by substitutional or collateral experience; as for the personality of the nonsurvivor, it is absorbed into the oversoul of creation, becoming a part of the Deity of the Supreme. [117:4.2 (1283.4)]

Man's personality comes from the Father and is therefore eternal; it will eventually achieve Deity destiny. Man's personality, with regard to self-identity, is a conditioned eternal reality, and man must choose to be individually present at the attainment of such destiny.

The great challenge that has been given to mortal man is this: Will you decide to personalize the experiencible value meanings of the cosmos into your own evolving selfhood? or by rejecting survival, will you allow these secrets of Supremacy to lie dormant, awaiting the action of another creature at some other time who will in his way attempt a creature contribution to the evolution of the finite God? But that will be his contribution to the Supreme, not yours. [117:4.10 (1284.6)]

And so the decision awaits each of you as it once awaited each of us: Will you fail the God of time, who is so dependent upon the decisions of the finite mind? will you fail the Supreme personality of the universes by the slothfulness of animalistic retrogression? will you fail the great brother of all creatures, who is so dependent on each creature? can you allow yourself to pass into the realm of the unrealized when before you lies the enchanting vista of the universe career — the divine discovery of the Paradise Father and the divine participation in the search for, and the evolution of, the God of Supremacy? [117:4.13 (1285.2)]

The cycle is foreordained, but man’s participation therein is optional, personal, and experiential. [112:5.2 (1232.3)]

The Vicissitudes of Life

Batter my heart, three-personed God: for you as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; that I may rise and stand, o'erthrow, and bend your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new. [John Donne, "Holy Sonnets" (1633)]

We can read in The Urantia Book that "the greatest affliction of the cosmos is never to have been afflicted." [48:7.14 (556.14)] We lack the foresight into the true meanings of the providential workings of the Supreme. Trials and tribulations must be dealt with by mortal beings in their personal efforts for experiential growth and progressive perfection. Problems must be resolved, and in so doing, mortal creatures make progress in unifying their minds, souls, and spirits in the attainment of their spiritual destiny. We should place our faith into our Father's loving hands and trust that "the apparent cruelty of a perverse fate that heaps tribulation upon some suffering mortal may in reality be the tempering fire that is transmuting the soft iron of immature personality into the tempered steel of real character." [118:10.9 (1305.4)] The vicissitudes of life build strength of character, and they help us develop empathy for the sufferings of our brothers and sisters. As we pass the tests of time, our faith becomes stronger and our trust in God becomes more secure.

Candidates for eternal life are practitioners of an invigorating and constructive technique for meeting all of the vicissitudes and harassments of mortal living. Every day a true believer lives, he finds it easier to do the right thing. [156:5.13 (1739.8)]

At every stage of our spiritual ascent, for each bout with personal troubles, there is ever-present divine concern and care for our well-being. Struggle is an essential part of the acquirement of survival values by the mortal races. Our angels know that is for our benefit that they lead us into paths of new and progressive experience and moral choosing. No matter what we may perchance suffer and endure, no matter how much we may be afflicted, there is some comfort in realizing that all of this difficult experience is transient. As time sensitive creatures, we easily become anxious and impatient in our desire for the resolution of our difficulties, but we must try to understand that none of this misfortune can jeopardize in any way our sure path to ascension and salvation. Survival decisions need to be encouraged and embraced.

Even as mortals, so have these angels been father to many disappointments, and they will point out that sometimes your most disappointing disappointments have become your greatest blessings. Sometimes the planting of a seed necessitates its death, the death of your fondest hopes, before it can be reborn to bear the fruits of new life and new opportunity. And from them you will learn to suffer less through sorrow and disappointment, first, by making fewer personal plans concerning other personalities, and then, by accepting your lot when you have faithfully performed your duty. [48:6.36 (555.4)]

With the passing of years and the growing experience with "making fewer personal plans concerning other personalities," I have developed a greater respect for this almost cryptical comment from this above-mentioned quote from The Urantia Book. I believe there is both subtlety and wisdom being expressed here. The subtlety involves the life-technique for balancing heartfelt love and desire of service for one's fellows with equal respect for preserving self-respect and self-regard. The wisdom is that one can find a delicate balance for adventuring into intimate contact with other persons while at the same time remaining personally vibrant and spiritually energized.

The mortal mind can immediately think of a thousand and one things — catastrophic physical events, appalling accidents, horrific disasters, painful illnesses, and world-wide scourges — and ask whether such visitations are correlated in the unknown maneuvering of this probable functioning of the Supreme Being. Frankly, we do not know; we are not really sure. But we do observe that, as time passes, all these difficult and more or less mysterious situations always work out for the welfare and progress of the universes. It may be that the circumstances of existence and the inexplicable vicissitudes of living are all interwoven into a meaningful pattern of high value by the function of the Supreme and the overcontrol of the Trinity. [10:7.5 (115.7)]

The above quote poses a truly challenging philosophical question to all of us. When it comes down to the very heart of the Supreme Being's conjectured foreknowledge of events of major import in the cosmos, fortuitous and disastrous, we may find it best to exercise our faith that all things and events are, in the long run, contributing to the overall betterment for each and every one of us. We ought to place our full trust in our Universal Father's divine love and care for us. We should encourage our faith that all manifestations of the Father's handiwork can only be targeted for enticing us to perfection and eternal satisfaction. We should also realize that the Paradise Father himself indwells the deepest part of man's conscious being and as such shares in every life experience of his mortal child. We do not suffer our afflictions in solitude—he shares in our affliction.

The evolving divine nature of the Supreme is becoming a faithful portrayal of the matchless experience of all creatures and of all Creators in the grand universe. In the Supreme, creatorship and creaturehood are at one; they are forever united by that experience which was born of the vicissitudes attendant upon the solution of the manifold problems which beset all finite creation as it pursues the eternal path in quest of perfection and liberation from the fetters of incompleteness. [117:1.6 (1279.4)]

Predestination and Providence

The power-mind-spirit-personality actualization of the Supreme is considered an evolutionary inevitability. From an eternity perspective, the someday-to-be-completed evolution of the Supreme Being is a foregone conclusion. The exact pathway by which he evolves, however, is not determined. Throughout the time-space constrained Deity level of Supremacy, the Universal Father establishes for all personalized types of intelligent will creatures the profound freedom of freewill expression. This gift of personalized free will strives co-creatively with the Father for the destined actualization of the Supreme Being. Much like the biblical miracle of God's "separating the waters" thus allowing Moses and the chosen people to safely pass, God has by his own inviolable act of infinite and absolute free will separated the all-encompassing waters of infinity and provided a safe haven for his beloved and free-willed children. This safe haven is nestled deeply within the nurturing bosom of the Supreme.

It is within the inherent nature of the Universal Father to freely give of himself to his creation. He delegates "every power and all authority that could be delegated" and bestows "all of himself and all of his attributes, everything he possibly could divest himself of, in every way, in every age, in every place, and to every person, and in every universe." [10:1.2 (108.5)] This investment of free will and self-expression is given to all personal beings dependent on the Father for their existence, and this implies a self-imposed limitation of Deity that reflects "the outworking of the ideal and infinite love of the Universal Father." [32:4.10 (364.0)]

The Father is infinite and eternal, but to deny the possibility of his volitional self-limitation amounts to a denial of this very concept of his volitional absoluteness. [4:4.4 (58.9)]

In the most comprehensive sense, total infinity encompasses the capability of self-limitation, and this qualification includes the volitional self-limitation of the Father-I AM that "is susceptible of reality expression to all levels of universe existences." [105:1.2 (1153.5)] This infinite potential of the "I AM self-qualified" is self-expressed and self-revealed in the threefold Deity unification of the Trinity. The technique of trinitization allows the Universal Father to divest himself of all direct manifestations of absoluteness except absolute fatherhood and absolute volition. On the Deity level of Supremacy where the Supreme Being is personalizing in time and space, we find the "maximum self-limitation of the Trinity is its attitude toward the finite." [10:5.4 (113.5)]

In certain aspects, and in accordance with the established mandates of the Father's purpose and plan, the choice-actions precipitated by the human mind are for the most part unpredictable. We are far more than isolated material beings bound by unbreakable chains in a tyrannical river of time. We are not inexorably circumscribed to a personal fate that is inflexibly fixed from all eternity.

Having thus provided for the growth of the immortal soul and having liberated man’s inner self from the fetters of absolute dependence on antecedent causation, the Father stands aside. Now, man having thus been liberated from the fetters of causation response, at least as pertains to eternal destiny, and provision having been made for the growth of the immortal self, the soul, it remains for man himself to will the creation or to inhibit the creation of this surviving and eternal self which is his for the choosing. No other being, force, creator, or agency in all the wide universe of universes can interfere to any degree with the absolute sovereignty of the mortal free will, as it operates within the realms of choice, regarding the eternal destiny of the personality of the choosing mortal. As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute. [5:6.8 (71.3)]

In its widest reaching of cosmic implications, celestial providence is the deliberate and certain emergence of the "light and life" sovereignty of the Supreme Being within the universes of time and space. From the Paradise Father's point of view from eternity, the emergent Supreme Being is a foregone conclusion. The Supreme Being is the destiny of original purpose implicit within the Father's far-reaching plans for his time-space creations. The contributory details of outworking for this providential destiny, however, remain original and unpredictable.

Providence does not mean that God has decided all things for us and in advance. God loves us too much to do that, for that would be nothing short of cosmic tyranny. Man does have relative powers of choice. [118:10.1 (1304.3)]

The someday sovereignty of the Supreme Being in many ways resembles the majesty of a magnificent mountain. There are many unique pathways for reaching the top of a mountain; the final achievement of this effort remains the same regardless of the method of approach. The numerous potential pathways that establish a mountain's circumference and lead to the same summit are characterized by nearly unlimited originality and spontaneity. But there comes a time when no further choice of pathway to the top covers new and untouched topology, and this is when the mountain in its essential totality has been completely traversed and made fully experienced. The mountain may still be scaled with original pathways, but no new ground will be uncovered. After the final emergence of the Supreme Being, life experience in the finite creations of time and space will continue, but there will be nothing further contributed that is fully unique and one-of-a-kind. It is this final nature of the Supreme Being that is subject to the predestined destiny of the Father's creative plans. The majestic mountain of the Supreme will be eventuated in its full glory, and a new phase of purpose and plan will begin to unfold.

Providence is the sure and certain march of the galaxies of space and the personalities of time toward the goals of eternity, first in the Supreme, then in the Ultimate, and perhaps in the Absolute. And in infinity we believe there is the same providence, and this is the will, the actions, the purpose of the Paradise Trinity thus motivating the cosmic panorama of universes upon universes. [118:10.23 (1307.4)]

This freedom from the shackles of absolute predestination may be primarily due to the Universal Father's eternity decision to lovingly provide for a creation where creature free will is of tantamount sanctity. It is certainly a possible repercussion of the incomplete evolutionary status of the Supreme Being. There appears to be a providential unity in the evolving universes of time and space that is providing a basis of purposed continuity to the whole fabric of cosmic events. There is a driving cosmic flow of time and events that draws all things and beings into its powerful and swirling whitewaters and eddies. There is a powerful indication that all experiences, lives, ages, and epochs that successively occur in the cosmos are demonstrating an accounting for and correlation with "the transactions of time with the underlying purposes and basic reactions of eternity." [32:5.3 (364.5)]

As regards an individual life, the duration of a realm, or the chronology of any connected series of events, it would seem that we are dealing with an isolated stretch of time; everything seems to have a beginning and an end. And it would appear that a series of such experiences, lives, ages, or epochs, when successively arranged, constitutes a straightaway drive, an isolated event of time flashing momentarily across the infinite face of eternity. But when we look at all this from behind the scenes, a more comprehensive view and a more complete understanding suggest that such an explanation is inadequate, disconnected, and wholly unsuited properly to account for, and otherwise to correlate, the transactions of time with the underlying purposes and basic reactions of eternity. [32:5.3 (364.5)]

The evolving Supreme Being appears to have some ability to forecast and, to a limited extent,anticipate future evolutionary trends in his cosmos. This process is referred to as the "Immanence of the Projected Incomplete" [4:1.10 (56.2)] and [117:6.6 (1291.10)], and it is conjectured to originate from the Supreme's sometime destiny to interact with and participate on the level of the superfinite reality of the absonite (the Ultimate level of transcended time and space). This predictive ability of the Supreme "appears to be an amazingly fortuitous co-ordination of apparently unsettled universe happenings. This must be the function of Providence - the realm of the Supreme Being and the Conjoint Actor." [4:1.10 (56.2)]

It may be that on the upper limits of the finite, where time conjoins transcended time, there is some sort of blurring and blending of sequence. It may be that the Supreme is able to forecast his universe presence onto these supertime levels and then to a limited degree anticipate future evolution by reflecting this future forecast back to the created levels as the Immanence of the Projected Incomplete. [117:7.6 (1291.10)]

Man himself develops a growing ability, over time, to become supremely foresighted regarding both his own future along with the evolving trends of the universe itself in its relentless march toward perfection.

There is a providence in the evolving universes, and it can be discovered by creatures to just the extent that they have attained capacity to perceive the purpose of the evolving universes. [118:10.10 (1305.5)]

This cosmic providence of the Supreme, though, deals strictly with the totality of the cosmos, and lone individuals only become involved in this providential impact if their functional involvement has importance to some higher total, be it the total race, nation, planet, or higher still.

Consider the sublime power and beauty of the Father's purpose and plan for us—we do have a very real choice in our own destinies! Our individual futures are not foreordained! From eternity, the Father could have conceivably seen "the end from the beginning", and in one sense, he does. He clearly sees from eternity the someday-destined emergence of the Supreme Being in full power and glory. But by the greatest miracle of all, the Father allows us the incredible opportunity to become very real and critically important co-creators of destiny, not so much as to the determination of the final nature of the Supreme Being, but rather in how this final nature emerges.

Consider the awesome God-given power that is at this very moment in your own hands! Right now, this very second, you have within your powers of personal choosing the ability to consecrate yourself to the doing of the Father's will. You can choose to align your will to his purposes, to participate in the carrying out of his divine plans, and to share in the glorious destiny of the perfected Supreme! The only power in all the universe of universes that can prevent you from doing this is your self.

In the beginning the Father does all, but as the panorama of eternity unfolds in response to the will and mandates of the Infinite, it becomes increasingly apparent that creatures, even men, are to become God’s partners in the realization of finality of destiny. And this is true even in the life in the flesh; when man and God enter into partnership, no limitation can be placed upon the future possibilities of such a partnership. When man realizes that the Universal Father is his partner in eternal progression, when he fuses with the indwelling Father presence, he has, in spirit, broken the fetters of time and has already entered upon the progressions of eternity in the quest for the Universal Father. [118:5.2 (1299.2)]